White Gold Wielder (32 page)

“Put them down!” Linden snapped at him, pitching her voice to pierce his fixation. “Let go! Don’t let him do this to you!”

The corners of Sunder’s jaw bulged dangerously. With a groan as if he were breaking his own arm, he forced down the Sunstone, dropped it to the ground. Instantly its crimson beam vanished: the
orcrest
relapsed to elusive translucence.

But the blackness at the center of the
krill
swelled and became stronger.

Grimly Sunder clinched his free hand around the blade’s wrappings. Heat shone from the metal. Bowing his head, he held the
krill
in a grip like fever and fought to throw off the Clave’s touch—fought with the same human and indefeasible abandon by which he had once nearly convinced Gibbon that Covenant was dead.

Linden was shouting, “Sunder! Stop! It’s killing you!” But the Graveler did not heed her.

Covenant put out his halfhand. Fire spattered from his ring as if the simple proximity of Gibbon’s power made the silver-white band unquenchable.

Findail’s protest rang across the jungle. Covenant ignored it. Sunder was his friend, and he had already failed too often. Perhaps he was not ready to test himself against the Clave and the Banefire. Perhaps he would never be ready. But he did not hesitate. Deliberately he took hold of the
krill
. With the strength of fire, he lifted the blade from Sunder’s grasp as if the Graveler’s muscles had become sand.

But when he closed wild magic around the
krill
, all his flame went black.

Midnight conflagration as hungry as hate burst among the company, tore through the trees. A rage of darkness raved out of him as if at last the venom had triumphed, had become the whole truth of his power.

For an instant, he quailed. Then Linden’s wild cry reached him.

Savage with extremity, he ripped his fire out of the air, flung it down like a tapestry from the walls of his mind. The
krill
slipped between his numb fingers, stuck point first in the desecrated soil.

Before he could move, react, breathe, try to contain the horror clanging in his heart like the carillon of despair, a heavy blow was struck behind him; and Cail reeled through the brush.

Another blow: a fist like stone. Covenant pitched forward, slammed against the rough trunk of a rhododendron, and sprawled on his back, gasping as if all the air had been taken out of the world. Glints of sunset came through the leaves like emerald stars, spun dizzily across his vision.

Around him, fighting pounded among the trees. But it made no sound. His hearing was gone. Linden’s stretched shout was mute; the First’s strenuous anger had no voice.

Galvanized by frenzy, Hollian dragged Sunder bodily out of the way of the battle. She passed in front of Covenant, blocked his view for a moment. But nothing could block the bright, breathless vertigo that wheeled through him, as compulsory and damning as the aura of the Worm.

Cail and the Giants were locked in combat with Harn, Durris, and the rest of the
Haruchai
.

The movements of the attackers were curiously sluggish, imprecise. They did not appear to be in control of themselves. But they struck with the full force of their native strength—blows so hard that even the Giants were staggered. Pitchwife went down under the automatic might of Fole and another
Haruchai
. Swinging the flat of her falchion, the First struggled to her husband’s aid. Honninscrave leveled one of the
Haruchai
with each fist. Cail’s people no longer had the balance or alertness to avoid his massive punches. But the attackers came back to their feet as if they were inured to pain and assailed him again. Mistwave bearhugged one
Haruchai
, knocked another away with a kick. But the
Haruchai
struck him a blow in the face that made his head crack backward, loosened his grasp.

Moving as stiffly as a man in a geas. Harn pursued Cail through the battle. Cail eluded him easily; but Harn did not relent. He looked as mindless as Durris, Fole, and the others.

They had been mastered by the Clave.

Slowly the vertigo spinning across Covenant’s sight came into focus; and he found himself staring at the
krill
. It stood in the dirt like a small cross scant feet from his face. Though fighting hit and tumbled everywhere, no one touched Loric’s eldritch blade.

Its gem shone with a clear, clean argence; no taint marred the pure depths of the jewel.

Gibbon’s attempt on it had been a feint—a way of distracting the company until he could take hold of all the
Haruchai
.

All except Cail.

With the dreamy detachment of anoxia, Covenant wondered why Cail was immune.

Abruptly the knotting of his muscles eased. He jerked air into his lungs, biting raw hunks of it past the stunned paroxysm which had kept him from breathing; and sound began to leech back into the jungle—the slash of foliage, the grunt and impact of effort. For a moment, there were no voices; the battle was fought in bitter muteness. But then, as if from a great distance, he heard Linden call out, “Cail! The
merewives
! You got away from them!”

Covenant heaved himself up from the ground in time to see Cail’s reaction.

With the suddenness of a panther, Cail pounced on Harn. Harn was too torpid to counter effectively. Ducking under Harn’s blunt blows, Cail knocked him off balance, then grabbed him by the shoulder and hip, snatched him into the air. Harn lacked the bare self-command to twist aside as Cail plunged him toward a knee raised and braced to break his back.

Yet at the last instant Harn did twist aside. When Brinn and Cail had been caught in the trance of the
merewives
, Linden had threatened to snap Brinn’s arm; and that particular peril had restored him to himself. Harn wrenched out of Cail’s grasp, came to his feet facing his kinsman.

For a moment, they gazed at each other impassively, as if nothing had happened. Then Harn nodded. He and Cail sprang to the aid of the Giants.

Still coughing for air. Covenant propped himself against a tree and watched the rest of the fight.

It did not last long. When Cail and Harn had broken Fole and Durris free of Gibbon’s hold, the four of them were soon able to rescue the remaining six.

Pitchwife and Mistweave picked their battered bodies out of the brush. The First glared sharply about her, holding her sword ready. Honninscrave folded his arms over his chest to contain the startling force of his own rage. But the
Haruchai
ignored the Giants. They turned away to face each other, speaking mind-to-mind with the silent dispassion of their people. In spite of what had just happened, they did not appear daunted or dismayed.

When their converse was over, Cail looked at the Giants and Linden, then met Covenant squarely. He did not apologize. His people were
Haruchai
, and the offense to their rectitude went too deep for mere contrition. In a voice entirely devoid of inflection, free of any hint of justification or regret, he said, “It is agreed that such unworth as mine has its uses. Whatever restitution you command we will undertake. But we will not again fall from ourselves in this way.”

Covenant did not know what to say. He had known the
Haruchai
for a long time, and the Bloodguard before them; yet he was still astonished by the extravagance of their judgments. And he was certain that he would not be able to bear being served by such people much longer. The simple desire to be deserving of them would make him wild.

How was it possible that his white fire had become so black in so little time?

Pitchwife murmured something like a jest under his breath, then grimaced when no one responded. Honninscrave had become too bleak for mirth. In his frustrated desire to prove himself to himself, Mistweave had forgotten laughter. And the First was not mollified by Cail’s speech. The
Haruchai
had aroused her battle instinct; and her face was like her blade, whetted for fighting.

Because the sun was setting and Sunder was exhausted, she commanded the Master and Mistweave to prepare a camp and a meal. Yet the decision to rest did not abate her tension. Dourly she stalked around the area, hacking back the brush to form a relatively clear space for the camp.

Covenant stood and watched her. The blow he had received made everything inside him fragile. Even his truncated senses were not blind to her sore, stern vexation.

Linden would not come near him. She stayed as faraway from him as the First’s clearing permitted, avoiding him as if to lessen as much as possible his impact on her percipience.

The glances that Hollian cast toward him over Sunder’s shoulder were argute with fright and uncertainty in the deepening twilight. Only Vain, Findail, and the
Haruchai
behaved as if they did not care.

Covenant started to cover his face, then lowered his hands again. Their numbness had become repugnant to him. His features felt stiff and breakable. His beard smelled of sweat; his whole body smelled, he was unclean and rank from head to foot. He feared that his voice would crack; but he forced himself to use it.

“All right. Say it. Somebody.”

The First delivered a fierce cut that severed a honeysuckle stem as thick as her forearm, then wheeled toward him. The tip of her blade pointed accusations at him.

Linden winced at the First’s anger, but did not intervene.

“Giantfriend,” the leader of the Search rasped as if the name hurt her mouth, “We have beheld a great ill. Is it truly your intent to utter this dark fire against the Clave?”

She towered over Covenant, and the light of Mistweave’s campfire made her appear dominant and necessary. He felt too brittle to reply. Once he had tried to cut the venom out of his forearm on a ragged edge of rock. Those faint scars spread like fretwork around the fundamental marks of Marid’s fangs. But now he knew better. Carefully he said, “He will not do that to me and get away with it.”

The First did not waver. “And what of the Earth?”

Her tone made his eyes burn, but not with tears. Every word of his answer was as distinct as a coal. “A long time ago,” with the blood of half-mindless Cavewights on his head, “I swore I was never going to kill again. But that hasn’t stopped me.” With both hands, he had driven a knife into the chest of the man who had slain Lena; and that blow had come back to damn him. He had no idea how many
Bhrathair
had died in the collapse of Kemper’s Pitch. “The last time I was there, I killed twenty-one of them.” Twenty-one men and women, most of whom did not know that their lives were evil. “I’m sick of guilt. If you think I’m going to do anything that will destroy the Arch of Time, you had better try to stop me now.”

At that, her eyes narrowed as if she were considering the implications of running her blade through his throat. Hollian and Linden stared; and Sunder tried to brace himself to go to Covenant’s aid. But the First, too, was the Unbeliever’s friend. She had given him the title he valued most. Abruptly the challenge of her sword dropped. “No, Giantfriend,” she sighed. “We have come too far. I trust you or nothing.”

Roughly she sheathed her longsword and turned away.

Firelight gleamed in the wet streaks of Linden’s concern and relief. After a moment, she came over to Covenant. She did not meet his gaze. But she put one hand briefly on his right forearm like a recognition that he was not like her father.

While that touch lasted, he ached to take hold of her hand and raise it to his lips. But he did not move. He believed that if he did he would surely shatter. And every promise he had made would be lost.

The next day, the fruits of the verdant sun were worse. They clogged the ground with the teeming, intractable frenzy of a sea in storm. And Sunder’s weariness went too deep to be cured by one night of
diamondraught
-induced sleep, one swallow of the rare and potent roborant Pitchwife created by combining his liquor with
vitrim
. But the Clave made no more efforts to take control of the
krill
or the
Haruchai
. The shade of the trees held some of the underbrush to bearable proportions. No
Grim
or other attack came riding out of Revelstone to bar the way. And the travelers had made such good progress during the past two days that they did not need to hurry now. None of them doubted that the Keep of the na-Mhoram was within reach. At infrequent intervals, the distortion of the jungle provided a glimpse of the southwestern sky; and then all the companions could see the hot, feral shaft of the Banefire burning toward the sun like an immedicable scald in the green-hued air.

Every glimpse turned Linden’s taut, delicate features a shade paler. Memory and emanations of power assaulted her vulnerable senses. She had once been Gibbon-Raver’s prisoner in Revelstone, and his touch had raised the darkness coiled around the roots of her soul to the stature of all night. Yet she did not falter. She had aimed the company to this place by the strength of her own will, had wrested this promise from Covenant when he had been immobile with despair. In spite of her unresolved hunger and loathing for power, she did not let herself hang back.

The Stonedownors also held themselves firm. They had a score to settle with the Clave, a tally that stretched from the hold of Revelstone and the ruin of the villages down to the Sunbane-shaped foundations of their lives. Whenever Sunder’s need for rest became severe, Hollian took the
orcrest
and
krill
herself, though she was unskilled at that work and the path she made was not as clear as his. The silent caterwaul and torment of the vegetation blocked the ground at every step; but the company found a way through it.

And as the sun began to sag toward the high ridge of the Westron Mountains—still distant to the south and west beyond the region which had once been named Trothgard, but near at hand in the east-jutting promontory of the range—the companions reached the verge of the jungle below the rocky and barren foothills of the high Keep.

Halting in the last shelter of the trees, they looked up at their destination.